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Hi there, just used your guides to install Windows 7 in UEFI mode on a PC. The guides are great, thanks, but I found a few details confusing. Of course, that is related to how mother board manufactures are doing things differently, and not documenting them at all.

My ASRock Z77 Ex 4 board's UEFI/BIOS has a CSM setting, and a Secure Boot setting, with an option for installing "Default Secure Boot Keys". Related to Secure Boot are two display only fields, System Mode state, and Secure Boot state.

Secure Boot can be enabled, but until the Secure Boot keys are installed, the System mode state is "Setup", and the Secure Boot state is "Disabled". System mode state then becomes "User", and only then is a Secure Boot possible.

Since I'm using Windows 7, I have not used the Secure Boot keys, and remain in Setup state. The PC boots fine.

I have some odd things happening with my boot options that I don't understand. I created a UEFI bootable flash drive from a Windows 64 bit iso file for the installation.

The OS volume is a RAID 0 volume. I clearly saw the three partitions created when the OS volume was formatted. Diskpart also shows three partitions (after the OS installation), and the GPT field is marked/recognized by Diskpart.

OTOH, Windows Disk Management shows only two partitions, one a EFI System Partition, the other the primary partition, but it is labeled NTFS. Is the discrepancy an installation problem, or a side affect of the RAID 0 volume (created using Intel's IRST.)

The truly odd thing IMO is the boot order in the UEFI/BIOS shows "Windows Boot Manager" as the primary boot device, and the RAID 0 volume as secondary. Moving the RAID 0 volume to the primary boot device causes a boot failure. Changing back to Windows Boot Manager causes the PC to boot fine. During the installation, as soon as the first reboot was started, I removed the UEFI USB installation drive. I had no other drives connected to the PC during the installation, and have added none yet.

Any ideas about this?

EDIT: Just noticed in diskpart that the System Reserved partition has no drive letter, and is formatted as FAT32 (???)

So much about UEFI is new to us as it is only coming online full stream now. There is more to read about Secure Boot and variability of these and UEFI settings to be found in Bypass UEFI to Install WIn7 which is the course many have taken who have insurmountable installation problems with either.

I understand and agree. I'm not even sure if RAID volumes are supported in a UEFI/GPT boot. I'm wondering if I should convert that FAT32 partition to GPT? I was just experimenting with it so no big deal. IMO, UEFI booting is still not supported very well and is not yet mainstream.

I noticed a board similar to mine just had a UEFI/BIOS update that includes a new RAID OROM, and what was called Support Intel UEFI RAID configuration in BIOS setup. Hopefully my board will get that too.

Remember you have full Tech Support for any new hardware for at least a year. I'd want to read the Manual online before buying anything, then get everything I need out of the manufacturer's Tech Support, Forums, Manuals, google searches, etc. during the first year or sooner so I get even more than my money's worth.

If you'll report back here what you find it will also help countless others who will be searching for this information. SevenForums tends to get prominent placement in search results as I just tested by googling "Install UEFI" and got this thread at the top.

I'd wipe the HD with Diskpart Clean Command to try reinstall to make sure no previous partitioning interfered and you get only what the EFI installer wants.

The truly odd thing IMO is the boot order in the UEFI/BIOS shows "Windows Boot Manager" as the primary boot device, and the RAID 0 volume as secondary. Moving the RAID 0 volume to the primary boot device causes a boot failure. Changing back to Windows Boot Manager causes the PC to boot fine. During the installation, as soon as the first reboot was started, I removed the UEFI USB installation drive. I had no other drives connected to the PC during the installation, and have added none yet.

Any ideas about this?

EDIT: Just noticed in diskpart that the System Reserved partition has no drive letter, and is formatted as FAT32 (???)

theog, thanks very much for the information! This was the first UEFI boot OS installation I've ever done, so was not sure what is right or not. The FAT32 partition surprised me, I was not expecting that. Plus the use of the terminology "Windows Boot Manager" seemed strange to me. The board/UEFI I'm using only displays Windows Boot Manager, with no reference to a drive whatsoever, in the UEFI and Boot Menu.

So it installed correctly, great. I was considering removing that installation, since I thought it was wrong or corrupted. The instructions for the creation of the UEFI Boot USB drive from a Windows 7 iso file worked fine for me, and the resulting USB drive will work fine for installing Windows in non-UEFI boot mode too.

gregrocker, You are theoretically correct about hardware support, the reality of it is entirely different, at least for the manufacture of my mother board.

I was well aware that the drives I used for this installation (SSDs) should have no remnants of partitions or anything before the installation, and used the command prompt option in the Repair section of the USB Windows installation drive to run diskpart and clean the SSDs.

I'd be happy to report my experiences with UEFI booting, as long as I really know what I'm talking about, which has improved after reading theog's reply. I must now try Windows 8 as well.

Thanks theog, but I actually read about UEFI booting standards, etc, so I won't be asking ignorant questions like my first ones.

Although this is the Windows 7 forums, I'll post my experiences with an UEFI installation of Windows 8. The only guides and tools I used were those provided by SevenForums.

I purchased a Windows 8 Pro Upgrade download, and used the create media option. The result was copies of the iso file, and the ESD folder. Given the warning about potential problems with the iso when creating the UEFI bootable USB drive, I used the ESD-TO-ISO program. Creating the UEFI bootable USB drive went perfectly.

The installation went perfectly, the four partitions were created on a raw RAID 0 volume of SSDs. When I do a standard Windows 7 installation on a RAID volume, I always load the Intel "F6" RAID driver, although that is supposed to be optional. I tried that with Windows 8, but the supposedly Windows 8 compatible F6 driver would not load. In the end no optional driver was needed, Windows 8 has what it needs, for Intel IRST RAID.

I had to perform the Windows 8 "Refresh" operation before my installation would activate, which was very simple. I would suggest not loading any drivers you need until after the refresh, since I had to install them again after the refresh. IMO, the overall installation is not a difficult process, and the guides are flawless.

For people that are concerned about the apparent lack of drivers provided by mother board manufactures for use with Windows 8, I now understand why only a few if any drivers are provided. They are unnecessary. I installed only three drivers, one for the video card, and the others I downloaded directly from Intel, for my ASRock board. The two USB 3.0 drivers I need to load for Windows 7 are native to Windows 8, for example.

Also, IMO Windows 8 is not a tablet, touch screen only OS. Yes it is different than Windows 7, but if you really give it a chance, everything you usually use is there, just in a different manner. I have not used one of the "add the Start menu to Windows 8" programs, which forces you to learn the new way things are done. I would suggest others do the same. I may need to buy another copy of Windows 8, before 1/31...

You are welcome as well theog. It may be good news, but it's also true news.

I forgot to mention the settings in my board's UEFI/BIOS for a UEFI boot. That is, an ASRock Z77 Extreme 4. They are all in the Security menu. Not much there, and not particularly obvious IMO.

The option Secure Boot must be enabled. When that is done, another option appears, for loading the default Security Keys. A display only field also becomes active, displaying Setup mode for Secure Boot. A secure boot only happens if the security keys are loaded, which then changes the mode to User, from Setup. I believe that follows the UEFI secure boot protocol.

The use of "Windows Boot Manager" as an option in the UEFI's boot list, rather than a drive or volume name, as the correct boot device confused me, and I imagine it will confuse others too. The OS drive/volume name is still listed as a boot device in the boot list, which adds to the confusion IMO.

It seems your boards UEFI includes an indication of the drive as part of the "Windows Boot Manager" entry, which makes sense and reduces the initial confusion IMO. I imagine forums will be filled with questions about this in the near future. An explanation of this might be a good addition to the guides.

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